1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medical image display system comprising a server or a network attached storage (NAS) that stores a medical image (image information) and an image display terminal connected thereto via a network, a medical image display method, and a medical image display program.
2. Description of the Related Art
In image diagnosis, an image shot by a modality (medical-image tomography apparatus) such as a computed tomography (CT) apparatus, a computed radiography (CR) apparatus, a magnetic resonance (MR) apparatus, and a digital radiography (DR) apparatus is output to a film or is displayed on a client viewer, and a doctor interprets (diagnoses) the image.
Recently, an image data system such as a picture archiving and communication system (PACS) has been widespread. With the PACS, a server in a medical care facility in a hospital, etc. is connected to an image display terminal such as a workstation that is capable of displaying an image, thereby structuring a system that can communicate the medical image. The PACS includes a structure having the server, a plurality of NASs on the network and a client viewer that displays the medical image stored in the NASs for interpretation. A plurality of modalities (multi-modality) individually capture images of a patient in advance and obtain the medical images. The server stores the medical images of the patient with a correspondence to a display layout for displaying the medical images every modality that captures the image. An interpreter (doctor, etc.) selects the patient and the modality, and only the medical image of the patient captured with the modality is displayed on the client viewer on the PACS in a proper display configuration.
For example, only a plurality of CT images of the patient are displayed on the client viewer on the PACS on a preset display configuration. A user arbitrarily classifies the CT images into a series of the head, chest, and abdomen on a screen of the client viewer, and manually changes the display configuration.
Further, with the client viewer on the PACS, the development of technologies requires not only the display of only the medical image captured with a single modality but also the display and interpretation of all medical images (including images after image processing) of the patient on the client viewer, irrespective of the type of modality.
Further, it is required, to a multi-modality client viewer that uses a plurality of modalities, that the medical images of the patient, generated with a plurality of modalities, are efficiently arranged and displayed on the same screen. However, according to a conventional technology, as a display configuration, a single modality is optimally displayed. Therefore, initially, the images are overlaid and displayed on the screen. As a consequence, the client viewer requires the display change for easy interpretation, and the diagnostic efficiency of the doctor is low.